Ex-water Park Worker Gets Prison Time

York

YORK — A 23-year-old man from India will spend two years in prison for fondling visitors last summer at Water Country USA while he was a ride operator.

Sandeep Deepak Agarwal was convicted in January of two counts of felony aggravated sexual battery of a person under 13 years old and two misdemeanor counts of sexual battery.

On Monday, Agarwal was sentenced in York-Poquoson Circuit Court to five years in jail with four years and seven months suspended for each felony charge. For each of the misdemeanors, Agarwal was sentenced to serve seven months.

Substitute Judge Randolph Ford also ordered Agarwal to be on indefinite supervised probation after his release, but indicated he would not oppose lifting that order once Agarwal is returned to India.

Agarwal - a college student studying hospitality management in India - came to the United States to work last summer; his visa has since expired. He has been held at the Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail since his Aug. 26 arrest.

Agarwal was initially charged with inappropriately touching a woman in her 20s and two 11-year-old children. After his arrest, several others came forward. Three additional misdemeanor battery charges were later dropped to avoid costs associated with bringing victims from Pennsylvania to testify.

Defense attorney Thomas K. Norment Jr. argued Agarwal never intended to touch anyone inappropriately and instead was in a panicky state after being assigned to supervise a ride with little training. In a statement to the court, Agarwal said, "I was just trying to do my best job."

Jagdish Singh, a member of the Virginia Council on Human Rights, spoke on Agarwal's behalf. In court, Singh said she discovered nothing - during weekly jail visitations with Singh and a trip to India to meet Agarwal's family and friends - to indicate Agarwal was capable of the acts of which he is accused.

"I'm shocked he is sitting there," Singh said.

Ford noted that the incidents appeared to be a departure from Agarwal's normal behavior and the judge issued a sentence at the low-end of guidelines that ranged from two years of incarceration to more than six.